The Bad Batch: One Shot Collection

Whumpay Day Twenty-Seven: Caught in a Net/Survivor's Guilt

The blade is pressed to his neck. He leans back from it, pressing against the wall, panting, tears still flowing freely. It's weak but he doesn't care, can't care, even if it means he's useless and a failure and they'll kill him – this is Tech he's his brother he can't – can't –

"Why do you keep calling me that?"

Crosshair can't look at him. He can't look at anything but the blade pressed to his neck and digging into his skin. He's gonna die here, isn't he? At Tech's hand. He wants to get out. Away. Out of here. Hunter and Wrecker are down, and there's no one else coming. He's trapped here. Alone. With Tech. Again. Raw, gutted terror is ripping him apart and he can't move he's still trapped still – there's no way out. Not for him.

"There is no escape."

"That's your name." His voice is broken and strangled but he can still talk even if the blade is pressing into his neck and he feels the warmth of the blood welling and soaking his clothes. "Tech. From – before. When you were my brother."

His body shudders with a strangled sob. The blade slides deeper. It's not stopping it never stops it never gets easier never – stars he needs to get out of here needs –

He can't handle Tech hurting him. Not that it'll matter much longer, anyway – he'll be dead soon enough.

His tears sort of sizzle when they land on the blade. It's too close too close too –

He wants to move to get away to get out of here but there's – he can't move and Tech is too close way too close. He can't get out.

"I'm not your brother," he says, "I never was."

He's not Tech but Crosshair wants his brother back. He doesn't want to accept Tech's gone though he knows it and there's no way out. That's better than believing Tech is doing this to him – he wouldn't he wouldn't he wouldn't –

There's nowhere to go.

If they don't kill him, they'll make it – worse. Much worse. They'll hurt him until he begs for death and beyond. They were keeping him alive for – something. There's no one and nothing and he's alone.

His tears don't stop. He bites his lip, trying to stay quiet and still to keep from being hurt worse but he's as far back as he can get. His helmet is pressed back firmly against the debris pile and his head is throbbing. His neck is burning, and a quiet, strangled whimper slips out.

The blade is ripped back, and Crosshair gasps, panting. He doesn't dare lean forward.

Tech reaches down, grabbing his neck and jerking him upright. The pressure on his throat cuts off his airway and Crosshair jerks, struggling. "You're weak," he snarls.

He knows that.

He is.

Tech's close too close and he needs to get away to move to –

He tries to move, and his brother's knee rams into his side. A surge of raw pain shoots through his side as the ribs Ventress so nicely fractured snap altogether.

He's staring into the lenses of Tech's masks when darkness finally claims him.

***

Crosshair knows where he is before he wakes. The dark, depressed emptiness in the air says enough.

The training room.

Or torture room.

He hears the screaming first.